Apple and Influencer Marketing: Is Apple Ditching its Jobs Roots?

Apple, a brand whose previous CEO spurned market research and consultants, has done the unthinkable and acquired Twitter analytics provider Topsy. Topsy turns the seemingly endless fire hose of Twitter data into actionable intelligence on consumers, and more importantly, influencers.

The acquisition of Topsy represents an important shift in Apple’s underlying strategy: The company now possesses the ability to activate the power of untapped influencers. Moreover, with Topsy, Apple can collect and offer deeper demographic data for advertisers, app makers, partners and search engines. While Topsy provides this primarily for Twitter and lacks visibility into Facebook, it’s still a very significant step in the ad world, where identification of influencers and avid fans could hold the key to effective social advertising.

Against a shift to increasing openness and collaboration between companies and their consumers, Apple has traditionally cultivated a veil of secrecy, behind which they ignored the opinions of end users. It worked. Their reputation for creating demand rather than filling existing demand has been near legendary. However, this “down from on high” approach also led to missteps, particularly in recent years, such as the problematic release of Apple Maps and phones that didn’t work if you held them the wrong way. The era of hyper-connected vocal advocates and rising customer power has necessitated Apple’s consideration of a new core company pillar: embracing customer input and advocacy.

Apple Sees the Merit in Influencer Relations

Jobs’ famous rant against customer validation and focus groups has been tested in recent years, and this acquisition may mark a shift in philosophy. Apple can use Topsy to monitor its own products and services like iTunes Radio and new product launches over time, identifying true influencers who drive purchase and advocacy for Apple and their products. Even if Apple rewarding advocates proves to be a bridge too far, they may simply want the data to inform future advertising or to study what works and doesn’t work during a product release.

Apple has also spent a lot of time toying with various rating, quality, and highlighting algorithms for iTunes to help put the right songs or apps in front of the right people — with varying degrees of success. Ping is a clear example of an attempt by Apple to leverage social media, but failed to gain enough traction. With Topsy’s expertise, Apple may finally find a way to discern which reviews and ratings are relevant based on who made them, adding human intelligence via Twitter to significantly improve discovery to keep purchasers within Apple’s world from start to checkout.

Extending Boundaries: Apple as a Media Company

The Wall Street Journal’s Digits Blog estimates Twitter raked in nearly $47.5 million last year through data mining alone. Apple’s recent acquisition suggests they see data as a strategic growth market that will allow them to identify and target influencers who will hold increasing value to advertisers.

With Topsy on board, Apple may see a new glowing future for the stuttering iAD platform. By making use of historical and real-time Twitter posts, they will be able to derive deeper audience insights regarding influencers and individuals in general to offer advertisers.

Consider too the power that Apple could wield in a future iteration of Apple TV. There is a lot of buzz surrounding the “second-screen” experience when it comes to watching television and how it can be leveraged by both advertisers and media companies to better understand the viewing habits and opinions of watchers. Currently, Twitter is the favored real-time conversation platform of choice — as evidenced by the much-hyped Bluefin acquisition — and Topsy plugs Apple directly into the pulse of those discussions.

For instance, if a user was watching the massively publicized “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones through Apple TV, and in the midst of the horror tweeted their intense feelings via an Android device, Apple would be privy to the holistic analytics around the event. Apple could then combine a history of purchase, consumption, and social sharing/sentiment to derive valuable user profiles and segment data they could offer to advertisers. Advertisers would benefit from a deeper understanding of what sort of ads best fit certain programs, mediums or even individuals rather than attempting to simply target blanket demographics with advertisements

Escalating Search Competition: Owning Real-Time Mobile

Lastly, Apple will be able to claim a larger fraction of the real-time mobile search pie. While Google owns the grander search landscape, Facebook recently forayed into the game with its social graph search platform. Thanks to Topsy, Apple has the opportunity to gain a more significant foothold in the field by creating a social/influencer intelligence layer on top of its already impressive location information platform. This layer could inform future mobile search applications with information beyond where people are, providing information on who they are and who influences them.

Social Influence Has Now Influenced Apple

Apple has traditionally benefited from intense advocacy for their products — think the Apple Fanboy/ Fangirl phenomenon — but has rarely, if ever, taken a dive headlong into actively shaping it. It’s hard to predict exactly what Apple plans to do with the expertise it has acquired with its purchase of Topsy, but one thing is clear: the company sees advocacy and influence intelligence as a new way for money to be made.

At the very least, Apple has positioned itself to add a human layer of advocacy to its arsenal, which signals an important — and largely unexpected — change in the brand’s philosophy. From a company that always seems able to produce another great act when needed, Apple’s integration of Topsy into their various marketing and product initiatives may signal yet another game-changing move.

How do you think Apple will use the expertise acquired in Topsy? Is Apple in the midst of a striking takeover of the changing influencer and media industries?

Dan Sullivan is founder and CEO of Crowdly. Connect with him on Twitter at @Danielmsullivan.